The Heart Within Your Hand
by Semper Tardius
Summary: Prequel. Allen is a witch hunter in the 1600s, and goes to live in Massachusetts. There he meets Lavi and falls in love at first sight. But Lavi loves Lenalee and she loves him. Where does he fit in? And have the witches spread to the New World? Oneshot. Prequel to a fic that I am going to write that takes place in modern day. So, AU.


**This will be a one shot for another series. Honestly, they were two separate series, but what the heck, I am never going to write this one extensively. I hope you enjoy it because This is my dedication to Laven, a pair that I enjoy (though it is not my OTP). It will have a sequel that will probably have no real plot, but I just felt like doing anyways. Anyways, enjoy!**

**Oh, and before I forget. I had never heard a Portuguese accent before, and now I have a professor who is Portuguese. I love her accent!**

**The Heart Within You Hand**

**Fort Black Order**

**September, 1685**

**Allen Walker's Journal**

I had no intention of ever starting a journal, but my life has become complicated and I feel that every moment I have should be recorded. These are big words for an eight year old to write, but I have been to hell and back for the past six months under the tutelage of General Marian Cross. It is a blessing that my apprenticeship to him has finally come to an end, although it seems impossible that I am now on my own in the world. I may be smart, I may be resourceful, and I may have a powerful will. However none of that can comfort me at night when the awful dreams come to visit in the guise of twisted memories. Of course they are of my father, Mana Walker. He was my world, raising me for as long as I can remember. In England we were poor and it was a difficult place to survive. He would always talk about going to the Americas one day, the land of opportunity. But one day he changed. It came without warning, and at first it perplexed me. He had thrown himself away from me and did not return home for nearly a day. Then his behavior became strange. He talked to himself constantly. People began to accuse him of speaking blasphemy, of casting curses. I did not believe them at first, but the omens grew. A cat died, the neighbor's daughter fell sick, and a crop decayed from disease. One day the signs grew too coincidental. I asked Mana about it. With tears in his eyes he held me close and told me not to worry. General Cross came to investigate these odd occurrences. He put my father to a stake and burned him alive. I tried to save him using my arm—the one he told me never to use—but Cross stopped me. After my mourning and hatred passed he took it upon himself to train me. He was an unrelenting master, and now he has dumped me in London. He calls this place _The Black Order._ It is a strange place filled with people who hold so much knowledge about witches and warlocks. Just recently a man named Johnny Gill has taught me about the different classes of witches and warlocks. There are two divisions: The Noah and the Akuma. The Akuma are the ones we are likely to capture. Level ones are the weakest. Level Fours are the strongest. Mana was a level four.

There are others like me, who possess the holy substance of _innocence_. But they are so few in number, and none of them want to test their strength against mine. I cannot help but wondering if I am strong enough to be one of them. These exorcists are older by several years, some by decades. I do not want to kill witches by any means, but neither can I watch normal people being harmed by them. For this reason I want to be as strong as possible. I do not want to watch people suffer when they are guiltless. My biggest secret is that this also applies to witches and warlocks. I will never, ever kill someone who is innocent. And if I must fight against a hundred exorcists stronger than me to protect that soul, then so be it. Mana was not evil. He had a soul, he loved and felt pain. I do not condone the curses he put on people around us, but I knew his heart. He would not have done this without a good reason. And the curse he had given me…this scar upon my eye given mere moments before his pyre was lit…is also for my protection. Things like this can be misunderstood easily. When someone we love harms us, we automatically think that it is a betrayal. But this world is too complex and too unpredictable for us to define something so simply.

You may think I am young, and physically I am. But there are things in life that age the mind, the soul, and the heart. I cannot help but predict what my life will be in the next few years. I know deep down that my life span is short—even my innocence will shorten the number of years I have—but I also know that when I die my soul and heart will not be that of a child. No, instead those things will belong to an elder.

**London**

**January, 1686**

I have encountered someone that should never have been encountered. I am a General now, the slayer of hundreds of witches and warlocks in Europe. I thought there was nothing for me to fear. How foolish I was. My dear friend Johnny has warned me a thousand times that every time I take another life of _**His**_ followers, I become more of a threat. Months ago I asked him who _**He**_ was. Johnny replied, _The Earl. He is the Father of all witches and Warlocks. He is the First, the origin of all. And he is the leader of the Noahs._ I dismissed his words, because no one would ever believe that a nine year old would be a threat. When I walk the streets of London, of Paris, of Amsterdam, no one believes that I am carrying the rank I carry. The look down at me and laugh. Sometimes they toss a coin and sometimes they give me derisive looks. But not a single one thinks of me as a threat. Even the older Exorcists treat me like a child. But the Earl is different. He came to me without a disguise, without flowery words or pretenses. He faced me as if I were a man and with that terrifying grin he spoke to me.

_Good evening Allen Walker. Do you know who I am?_ He asked me. I can still recall how he seemed to loom over me, how exuded power and danger.

_Earl_, I replied, readying my innocence. I knew that I could take a few attacks from him, but here the physical limitations of a nine year old would hinder me more than be of use. His size defied logic for all of the grace and agility he portrayed in simple movements.

_You are correct. Do you know why I am here?_

I remember sliding my right hand to my arm, trying to pass it off as a gesture of uneasiness. _You want to kill me._

_You are such a smart boy_, the Earl praised. Then he laughed. I do not even know how to describe his laughter. The sound was both awful and hypnotizingly pleasant. _Yes, that was my intention. However the information about you does no justice. I find myself at a loss as what to do with you._

_Because I am a child?_ I demanded, angered once more by this unfair treatment. We are enemies and we should never show mercy to one another. If he harmed someone I would attack him. I am a threat to his plan, he should attack me. Age should never be a factor in this.

_Oh, I would kill you if I thought it was necessary. No, I have discovered something far more interesting_, he told me. I did not like the glint in his eye.

_What have you discovered?_ I asked.

_Allen Walker, you are the son of a warlock, are you not?_

I did not know why at the time why his words made my blood run cold. But now I do. I researched witches and warlocks. How they come to be, what makes them what they are. An Akuma is an animal that the Earl gives a conscience. As it grows stronger it becomes more and more human until at last it can even fool itself into thinking it is a human. And a Noah is seemingly born at random, reincarnating into unsuspecting bodies. However, in rare cases where a witch or a warlock has a child, the being of a Noah is drawn into the child. I, Allen Walker, will one day become a Noah. It comes in the years of puberty. If I do not die from using my innocence, then I will become one of them. I…do not know how to feel about this.

For now I will live as I have been and keep this secret to myself. I will go to the Americas where the Black Order has another settlement in Massachusetts to protect against the spread of witchcraft. When the time comes, I will decide what to do.

**Massachusetts**

**April, 1688**

Life in the colonies is hard. This place is both miserable and beautiful. I live with Komui Lee, a man from China. He is a doctor here. He lives with his sister and treasures her greatly. She knows very little about the Black Order. As a General I can sense the potential she holds as an exorcist. For now I will allow Komui to keep her ignorant of the duty I may have to force her into one day. There are others here who know of the Black Order, and a curiously large number of them are potential exorcists as well. I know now that the leaders of Black Order placed me here in the event of witchcraft spreading to the Americas. I am strong enough to fight them and experienced enough to teach others. They do not know of my role in this war but something tells me that this future is not far away when they will both learn it and be forced to become someone like me.

But enough of dark matters. I know that what I have written in your pages is often of a melancholy mood, but today there was a ray of light. In history there is a group, a clan, that records events from the midst of things. They never observe from far away, and they never put their emotions into their work. This is the Bookman clan, and today the head and his grandson came here to record the war. It is his grandson that I call the light. He is a few years older than I, handsome. His eyes are bright green, his hair as red as my former master's, and there is something mischievous in his expression that draws me to him. It is perhaps wrong—no, it is definitely wrong for me to admit this but I have fallen in love with him at first sight. He has no eyes for me, but I see that as the best. He never notices when I look at him, the way I watch him smile from behind my façade of a poor indentured servant. He never sees the love I give him when he looks away. I am relieved that he never notices anything of this, for it is wrong me to love a man, and surely he would hate me for it. But Lavi, that is his name, is so unique. He laughs so jovially and recites scripts as old as Hesiod. His spirit is free and unbound like the Puritans I live with.

There is a downside, of course. I noticed it the first time we met. He had looked at me with a guarded expression and I could read every single thought. He looked at my hair and thought it similar to the gray dust one sweeps from a house. He looked at my eyes and likened the color to dull lead. He thought of me as ugly. And when his eyes came upon Lenalee he saw her as beautiful as a nymph, with the grace of a Muse. These thoughts I read as if they were the words of a letter and each word cut me. It made me wonder why I could read him so well after just one meeting, why I had fallen in love with him. For now I have come to accept these things. Instead I watch the relationship between Lavi and Lenalee. I love her as a sister, and it would pain me all the more to let her marry the one I love. But she is only a year older than I and there is time before she is even old enough to join a man in matrimony. In that time I hope that Lavi comes to fall out of love with her, that she will never return his affections, or that I myself may fall out of love. As sweet as this is, these feelings of excitement, I know that to love a man in this time and this place will never end well. And Lavi is a Bookman. He is only allowed to love the person he marries and the children he will have, and those are for the sake of continuing the Bookman clan. There is no room to love someone who does not contribute to anything.

**Massachusetts**

**September, 1690**

The years have passed me by so very slowly, and I can feel the sands slipping through my fingers. I am almost fourteen. The dreams of Mana have begun to haunt my dreams again. I cannot help but wonder if these are the first signs of becoming a Noah. There is nothing to guide me, and in my dreams I see the Earl there, offering to take me in. To protect me and love me. Every night those sweet words sound more and more tempting. Even my innocence pounds eagerly at the idea of going to the Earl. There is another part of me, a more logical part, that causes me to worry. I know a little about witches and warlocks, how they can affect dreams. An Akuma of the highest level only has influence within a town and no farther than its outskirts. The Noahs can affect entire cities, and the Earl has once been recorded to extend his influence to nearby countries. But if he were in England, his power could not reach the Americas. This meant that the war against witchcraft had failed. They had now invaded the New World. I do not know how long it will be before they began to work their magic in this fresh land. It could be months or even years. Right now, I just want to live in this moment where no one has to fight, where I do not need to decided who lives and who dies, where I can live as a normal person instead of working as a General. My life has fallen but it is still pleasant. None of the worries I have pertain to the life I lived before.

_Where is Lenalee?_ Lavi asked me. That was the first time he spoke to me.

_Are you okay?_ Lavi asked me one morning he came to visit, a basketful of herbs grown by his grandfather in his hand. He had looked upon my sallow face, noticing the shadows caused by my nightmares. He was not concerned for my well being as a friend, it was more of a general acquaintanceship. I still appreciated.

_I can talk to her whenever I want to!_ Lavi shouted at me. That was the first argument we shared, and it was the beginning of our animosity. Of course, I never truly hated him as I pretend to.

_I hope you find yourself a shallow grave to be buried in_, he told me coldly on the day where I asked him to leave Lenalee alone and instead stay with me. He understood it as me fulfilling the role of a chaperone, but I truly just wanted him to stay with me. I see the way Lenalee looks at Lavi now. There is affection growing in her eyes, curiosity in the smile of her mouth, and blushes igniting her cheeks beautifully. Lavi is not blind to it, but he is also not as attentive as I am or as Komui is. Komui does not approve, but he loves his sister dearly and when she comes of age he will allow her to pick the path she wants.

There is another who watches. He does not love anyone, and in fact he is as much of an enigma as a nuisance to me. His name is Kanda, and he is Lavi's dearest and closest friend. I do not hate Kanda, despite our clashing personalities. Neither does he hate me. Some days, when our paths cross and no one is around, we sit and talk to each other. Some weeks we do not say a single word. He is a quiet companion whose company I enjoy when we are not arguing. He has come to know me well, and knows that I too have many secrets that I hide from the world. And of all the secrets he has unraveled, the largest one is my love for Lavi.

_You love that idiot, do you not?_ He asked me one day. We sat back to back in the forest. Only us in the forest.

_Lavi?_ I asked with lightness in my tone as response to the gravity of the question.

_I can see it in your eyes when you look at him. You love him with your entire being._ I turned to look at him.

_Does it not bother you?_ I was curious.

_The only thing that bothers me is that you have fallen for someone who is too blinded by beauty to see that which is amazing about you, _he replied. I blinked at him, not expecting a compliment from him. Kanda did not meet my gaze. _I am not one to shy from homosexuality, and neither is Lavi. But he is not bright, Allen. You may as well give him up to Lenalee._

I gave him a sad smile. _The heart does not like to be restrained, Kanda. Nothing can control this emotion. _

He said nothing more than that.

**Massachusetts**

**December, 1691**

It has come to pass, my fear. The Earl has landed in the Americas. There have been no disturbances as of yet, but the Black Order knows that he is here. They sent me a letter dating several months ago, and the time has come. I must reveal myself to the others, give them the innocence, and train them. I must decide who to kill and who to save. And…I will either die from using my Innocence, or I will become a Noah and die by my own students' hands. Because I know that the Earl will never come to save me. The only reason he let me live before was so he could watch me suffer for what I have done. What better way than becoming the very thing I fought against?

I walked to the meeting hall where Komui had gathered all the people I named together to explain the situation. They knew of the Order and of witches and warlocks. And of so very little else. It made me sad to take away their ignorance.

_How will we defend the colonies against the Earl and his ilk?_ Chaoji demanded. He held Komui by the lapels. Lavi and Kanda were both trying to restrain him.

_You fight them_, I answered, drawing everyone's eyes towards me. They took in my uniform, mouths parting in disbelief. _I will give you the only substance that can harm witches and warlocks, and I will teach you all how to wield it. _

_Who are you?_ Chaoji asked. He seemed unimpressed by my rank. Considering my age, he probably thought of me as insignificant, nothing close to being a threat.

_Chaoji, this is Allen. He has been a General since he turned eight,_ Komui told him diplomatically. I saw the eyes of my fellow villagers widen. _He is the only one who can teach you all._

_This brat? There is no way he can!_

I gave him the coldest look I could. The Allen they knew had to be put away. This one before them had a war to fight, lives to save.

_If you want to meet the Earl face to face without the knowledge of how to even use your innocence, then be my guest_, I told him. _I hope you have half the courage I did when I first met that bastard. You will need it when coming across an opponent as powerful as he is._

Lavi looked at me incredulously. _Allen, you have met the Earl and survived?_

_That is the most frightening part. He has a plan for me,_ I replied grimly. _The more witches and warlocks you kill, the more he wants to take his revenge on you. Three fold, seven fold, ten fold. He is a cruel entity. So beware the number of lives you take. Only kill the witches that do harm._

I hoped that they would heed my warning.

**Massachusetts**

**January, 1692**

These exorcists are proceeding as well as can be expected with the time limit we have. Lenalee struggles. Her body is unused to hard labor. Lavi thinks me cruel and curses my hardness for working her as hard as everyone else. But he is too blind to see that if I do not do this she will die. Being an exorcist is not easy. In any given day you must be prepared to die. After they are physically strong and agile enough I will teach them this principle and the other things about the Earl's followers. Most of them hate me now, and by the time I drill fear into them they will hate me even more. That is the way an exorcist must be trained however, and one day they will see that. Master Cross trained me this way because there can be no room for weakness as an exorcist. I understand that very well as a young adult, and I also understand that he put me through such hardships because he loved me as his precious student. His only surviving apprentice. For this reason I do a similar thing to Lavi. Every time he argues, he talks back to me, or he attempts to woo Lenalee during training I punish him by forcing him to do more training. He hates it, hates me—I can see it from the fire in his eyes. He does not notice it now but he is much stronger and faster than anyone else, even Kanda. The only one who he could fairly compete with is me.

I have come to accept the fact he will never be mine. Every day I see him walk with Lenalee. In the shadows when he thinks no one is looking he presses kisses upon her pale cheek and lights it with pinkness. I know that one day he will propose and she will say yes. She is already sixteen, and of the proper age to marry. It makes me sad to see such a thing, and I do my best not to hold a grudge against the one I see as my sister. Kanda, as always, sees my conflictions. He does his best to keep me strong of heart. Little does he know that part of my weakness comes from the knowledge of my impending doom. The dreams are becoming worse, and the Earl whispers sweetly in my ear every night. I cling to the memory of the people I have come to love in this village. Among those faces is Lavi's and as much strength as he brings to me, he tears me down inside. One day soon I will succumb to the Earl. Already a face has lost its comfort. It now tells me of things that can never be. I am counting the days I live now, and now I hope that I will use my innocence as much as possible. I would rather die than give in to the Earl.

As it is, the first case of bewitchment has come. The village is not so far from here, Salem. I fear that a hysteria will begin, and many innocent lives will be lost to ignorance and false accusations.

**Massachusetts**

**February, 1692**

Slaves have been executed, accused of witchcraft. Time is short. Their training will have to end now. Everything else they will need to learn on their own. Because of this, I feel that something awful will happen. Before we go to Salem, I wanted to settle my life without regrets. I went to Lavi at night, under the lie of needing to talk to him about training.

_What do you want?_ Lavi asked me, not paying any heed to me. Of course this did not surprise me, so it did not deter me either. I said nothing and this silence made him turn towards me. The moment his eyes met mine I took his face between my hands and kissed him. He did not push me away as I expected, nor did he break away. When I finally receded he was simply staring at me with a blank expression.

_Surely the Bookman's heir is not this dimwitted_, I said, half teasing him. His green eyes flashed angrily.

_You—_he began.

_Lavi, I think you know what I truly think of you. I also have faith in you and your path as a Bookman. Because of that, I wanted to tell you more about myself, a gift of sharing history._ I knew he would not want to know a single thing about me. But if it pertained to history, he would listen. He would let me stay in his presence just a little longer and allow me the moment to delude myself into thinking that he did not hate me and that perhaps he liked me. Even in the slightest way.

_Go on_, he agreed reluctantly.

_My father was a warlock. I did not know until General Cross took him and burned him on the stake. I hated that man for destroying my father, who had not killed anyone and at worst caused minor damages to crops,_ I began. He did not look anymore interested, or any less interested. _But it did not matter. He simply took me and forced me to become his apprentice. I learned that the type of innocence I have uses my own life as energy, and each time I use it I shorten my life by a few months, sometimes a few years._

I saw from the corner of my eye that Lavi was not even disturbed by my confession in the slightest and it made my heart sink.

_Is that so? Well, that is very helpful to our historical record,_ he told me sarcastically.

_It is relevant,_ I promised him. _After I became a General the Earl came to me with the intentions of killing me. Then he said he would not do such a thing because I was the son of a warlock. I later researched it and learned that it is rare for a witch or a warlock to have children, and that most of those children become Noahs. The reason the Earl did not kill me is because he wants to watch me become one of his family members._

My jaw tightened at the idea and this time I could not even bring myself to allow Lavi to see my expression.

_If I use my innocence enough I will die before then, but I thought it would be something to put down into history. It may be useful knowledge in the future to know that innocence and Noah can exist in the same body, to know that one of the exorcists can also become the enemy. _

Lavi was silent and I moved to leave. He did not try to stop me, but he did utter one word of gratitude.

Outside his house I found someone waiting for me in the shadows. Her small figure trembled with anger beneath her cloak and her eyes sparkled with furiousness. I glanced at the home of Bookman and Lavi, saw that from this angle we could still see into Lavi's room. She saw everything. And if she heard anything I said, then I did not doubt that I would be persecuted by them.

Lenalee slapped me across the face.

_How dare you?! How dare you do that! You freak! You abomination!_

The worst part is that hers was the face that I had lost all comfort in seeing. Her shouts and insults did not faze me in the slightest. It was easy for me to simply pass her by.

_I will tell everyone and they will hate you and curse you!_

Lenalee truly was clueless. Ever since I began to train the exorcists, that is all that the villagers have been doing. They hate me, they curse me already.

_I will make sure that you are punished!_

And Lenalee is so unintelligent. Without me to guide them, all of the innocent people will go to death, the victims abandoned, and the instigators uncaught.

**Massachusetts**

**February, 1692**

I was woken the next morning by a grim-faced Kanda. He told me to get dressed and to follow him. I know there is something wrong. If it is as I suspect, then I will not write in these pages. These talks of witchcraft make people suspicious and uneasy. They are quick to judge and to condemn. Last night Lenalee's declaration rang with true intentions to cause harm. The village is unlikely to do more than socially oust me if she told them of my homosexuality. However…there is a feeling in the back of my mind that there is something more accusing. Another condemning allegation. I do not know what it is—Kanda is calling me. I must away.

**End of the journal of Allen Walker**

_I remember the way Lenalee begged me to share with me everything Allen had said. I did not want to divulge in such information, but her gaze was so sweet and beseeching and worried that I could not help myself. I knew she loved Allen like a brother and having seen him kiss me would have been a shock. I wanted to assure her that it was nothing for her to be worried about. And I told her about the secret Allen entrusted to me. _

_The next morning I felt something strange in the air. It was heavy, oppressive. I wasted no time in racing out of my house to the square. There was a crowd for the villagers, their kind facers now red with violence and hatred. I looked around as if it would help me find the cause, asked around to learn what was going on. They told me they were putting a witch to the stake. A male witch. Said Lenalee testified against him, and he was found guilty. I knew then that they meant Allen and a mix of emotions washed over me. I never liked him, hated him even, but I was not prepared to see him burned to death. So I fought myself towards the center of the crowd. Sure enough Allen was tied to a stake, tinder gathered beneath his feat and around him. A bruise darkened his cheek, and he looked—not frightened, but surprised. As if he had not expected this scenario. I knew from last night that the concept of death did not frighten him, but this was one path he had seemingly not thought through. Or expected. _

_His eyes found mine, and the color in his eyes hardened. His gaze accused me. Kanda glared at me from across the pyre. I had never seen my friend so angry._

"_Lavi, you traitor," Allen called to me. It was not a shout, and he sounded more anguished than angry. Lenalee I could see nowhere, and by the time I turned back to Allen a fire was igniting the pyre. My eyes widened._

"_No!" I shouted, moving forward. But whatever they put on the wood lit it up quickly. Allen screamed in pain, the sound so tortured and pained that it shattered something inside of me. I stared as he writhed, fighting to become free, to live. I watched as he stilled and the flames engulfed him completely. _

_I was numb with shock, horrified at having seen someone burned to death. I had never expected that, and I would be lying if I said it had not affected me to the core of my being. I looked around and saw that everyone was cheering and rejoicing, except for Kanda. I finally saw Lenalee, and she had grim satisfaction engraved in her pretty features. I couldn't stay there any longer. I fled. _

_I came into the forest, tears running down my face. I had a thousand emotions running through me, and I couldn't even think straight. I paced around for who knows how long, tearing out my hair and trying to control the sobs. At last I fell against a tree and allowed myself to hyperventilate so that I might pass out. I couldn't think about the horrific death I had just witnessed, or who the blame belonged to, or the fact that I knew exactly who had been reduced to burnt flesh, or that awful smell._

_Then a cry filled the air, powerful and ancient, filled with pain. There I met the Earl in his grief. He looked upon me angrily. His wrath created a dark aura around him and I knew that I was in a dangerous place, that I could even be killed. For the Earl loves his Noahs, and one of them had just died before even being born. _

"_This is all your fault, Lavi Bookman! I curse you to walk this earth in repentance!" I cried, tears streaming down his face. I gasped as I felt a sharp pain in my right eye. I covered it and could feel blood seep from beneath the eyelid. "Until he lives again, you and your father shall suffer an eternal life and my curse!"_

_And that is how my grandfather and I became immortal. And three hundred years later, I found Allen again, walking on the earth. However, he was not the same Allen Walker that I knew._

**I am now done! It took forever to type and this is a seriously long oneshot.**

**I would like to dedicate this to the Salem Witch Trials, which was a very ugly time period in U.S. history, but nothing I write will ever come close to describing the fear and darkness of that time period, which is why I avoided going into it too much. This story was inspired by **_**Hansel and Gretel the Witch Hunters**_** more than anything. I hope you enjoyed this oneshot and look forward to the sequel.**


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